It is filled with love songs, including standards and 1970s soul hits they adored, but, in typical fashion, all reinvented and refracted through the prism of her jazz sensibility.
Out of the crucible of that experience, the celebrated soul-jazz singer and six-time Grammy nominee has crafted Time Traveler (Origin), a tribute to her husband. It was a devastating three-year decline as the neurodegenerative disease rendered him increasingly helpless until his death in 2019, the year of their 40th anniversary.
After her husband, the noted architect Philip Freelon, was diagnosed with ALS, Nnenna became his primary caregiver. Nnenna Freelon recently released her 11th album and first studio album in a decade, despite-but also, in a sense, because of-her personal travails of the last five years.
